INTERVIEW: We did a lot of things right

Manager Greg Abbott gave us his thoughts on the Garforth friendly after the game on Tuesday night.

"I thought it was a really good night for us," he admitted.

"It was a difficult pitch to play on, similar to Penrith, but there was a massive difference in the two performances. Penrith and Garforth play at a similar level but we looked much better tonight."

"The players are starting to take on board what we're trying to do," he added. "There were a lot of good performances and it was good to see us score a few goals. We'll use this venue for training on the way to matches and I think, once the pitch gets a bit of rain, it will be much better.

"We're trying to help clubs along, as we have with Penrith and Kendal, and this is a relationship which will grow in a positive way for us all. As a football match it didn't really test us, and it can be difficult to do things properly when it's like that. I thought we did a lot of things right tonight which is very pleasing."

"I thought Lewis [Guy] was terrific in the first half and he probably should have scored four or five goals," he said. "Josh Gillies was the same during the second half and Mark [Beck] put the ball in the net which is what he's there to do. He'll get the headlines but there were some really decent performances throughout the team.

"I was delighted with the amount of chances we created on what was a difficult surface and it was good to see us move the ball round so quickly."

"I thought Reece [James] was very good," he continued. "He only gave the ball away once and you can already tell he'll be a very good player for us. We watched him a lot last year, he's improving all the time and you can see that he's got his game organised.

"We're going to leave it until the weekend to make a decision on the remaining trialists. I don't think a game like that can make your decision because it was comfortable for us. We'll have another look at them on Friday and Saturday and let them know.

"Lewis [Guy] is in a slightly different situation because we really like him and he really likes us. He wants to be at the club so I'll speak to John [Nixon] this week and see if there's anything we can do with him."

"Tony [Caig] is working on the goalkeeper situation," he revealed. "We're still looking at the loan option though because we can't afford to have a highly paid goalkeeper sat on the bench.

"We're hoping to have some news on that in the next week or so and, if we can do that and get Lewis sorted, we'll probably be there in regards to numbers in the squad."

"We'll have a right good go in the Burnley game so we can show the supporters where we are with the squad," he said. "The players have done the hard work on the difficult pitches so they probably deserve to play on Brunton Park because it's looking magnificent again.

"I don't actually know how Dave [Mitchell] does it but it's probably the best pitch I've seen - and that's including Wembley.

"Annan are another team who we like to help out because they allow us to train up there when the weather gets bad. Everybody at Annan has been really good with us so we'll take another strong squad up there to make sure everybody gets pitch time over the weekend."